2024
Exploring European maritime exploration in the Arctic through whalers' burial sites in Svalbard
Lise Loktu (NIKU) will present ongoing and potential historical and archaeological research projects related to European whaling activities in Svalbard as archives of social, political and religious aspects of European society in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Time and place: Nov. 13, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
Loktu is currently working on a research project about European maritime exploration in the Arctic, using some of the most incredible archaeological material available from the period; preserved burial sites from the European whaling period in Svalbard in the 17th and 18th centuries. The burials are extremely well preserved compared to other European contexts due to their location in wilderness areas with permafrost and a cold and dry climate. These burials represent a unique source of knowledge about European society (whalers and sailors) that has been little investigated for decades, despite its enormous potential. However, recent excavations have shown that preservation conditions have deteriorated significantly in recent decades due to the effects of climate change (coastal erosion, bacterial degradation). Loktu is looking for a multidisciplinary approach to the study of this period, including both physical and humanistic approaches, in order to elucidate both the effects of climate change on the archaeological material and the cultural-historical aspects of the period (such as the social, political, and religious aspects of European society). The use of new scientific methods such as GIS, DNA, isotopic analysis, etc. has already shown enormous potential to gain new insights into the whalers that have never been explored before. Loktu is looking forward to exploring these and other possibilities with you.
About the presenter
Lise Loktu is a researcher (2022-) at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), High North Department. She has an M.Sc. in archaeology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, specialising in GIS and historical archaeology. Loktu has extensive experience in cultural heritage management in Svalbard (2016-2022), which suffers from critical knowledge gaps in relation to cultural history issues and the effects of climate change. Loktu has designed and managed several archaeological excavation projects in Svalbard, including whalers' burial sites from the Western European whaling period, which were excavated in Svalbard during the 17th and 18th centuries. She is currently working on establishing relevant research networks and potential projects to explore cultural (social), economic, political and religious aspects related to European whaling.
Lise Loktu — Norsk institutt for kulturminneforskning (niku.no)
Readings
Jensen, L. V. (1990). Whalers's Clothing from a 17th-18th Century Cemetery at Likneset, Northwest Svalbard: A discussion of the Cemetery's dating and Svalbard's role during the pelagic Whaling period. Acta Borealia, 7(2), 36-55.
Sellevold, B. J. (2000). Twelve whalers from Svalbard. Skeletal remains from Liknesset on the Vasa Peninsula. NIKU Scientific Report. Norsk Institutt for kulturminneforsking, Oslo.
Circulation of knowledge about the Arctic in 18th century Germany
A lecture by Joanna Kodzik from the Malaurie Institute of Arctic Research Monaco/UVSQ at the University of Paris-Saclay/UVSQ.
Time and place: Oct. 9, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
Whereas the reflections of the Enlightenment about the new world are considered to be a form of “intellectual rediscovery”, relatively few reliable facts about the Arctic were known at the beginning of the eighteenth century and its systematic description by scholars drawing on first-hand observation was only just beginning. During the 18th century, more and more knowledge from the Arctic reached Europe and was intensively received among German-speaking scholars. This lecture is dedicated to the circulation of knowledge about the European Arctic - Greenland, Iceland and Lapland in German travelogues and scholarly discourses. The lecture will give an overview on the German-speaking firsthand knowledge provided by whalers, Moravian missionaries, who run 6 mission stations in Greenland in the period from 1733-1900 and made several journeys to Iceland and Lapland and other German-speaking travellers. The focus is on the ‘use’ of knowledge from the Arctic in the sense of Peter Burkes’s ‘idea of a creative reception’. The focus is on the question of who received the new knowledge from the Arctic and in what context, and how this was incorporated into own worldviews and theories to legitimize them? Johann Reinhold Forster’s A history of the dicoveries and voyages made in the North (1786) will serve as an example.
About the presenter
Joanna Kodzik is Junior Full Professor (tenure track) in Arctic Humanities at the Malaurie Institute of Arctic Research Monaco/UVSQ at the University of Paris-Saclay/ UVSQ in France. She was Research Fellow at the Leibniz Institute for History and Culture in Eastern Europe (GWZO), University of Leipzig and Research Fellow at the Institute of History University of Potsdam. She is a specialist in German Studies and Cultural history of early modern period. Her newest research focus on the history of communication and knowledge about the European Arctic and Moravian missionary writing.
Reading
Introduction to Kodzik, Joanna, Jan Borm, and Jean Malaurie. 2020. German Representations of the Far North (17th-19th Centuries) : Writing the Arctic. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Organiser
KLIMER
NB: External guests should register with Ada Arendt.
An earthquake, a mild winter and the conflagration: Erik Pontoppidan on the Lisbon Earthquake
In this talk, Kyrre Kverndokk will discuss a planetary connection between the earthquake and the mild winter in Scandinavia in 1756.
Time and place: Sep. 4, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 was not only a major disaster; it was also an inter-European media event. Many different types of publications discussed its moral implications, the religious and geological factors, including newspaper reports, pamphlets, poems, sermons, and philosophical inquiries. Clergymen, scientists, and philosophers from all over Europe extensively published their views on the earthquake. One of them was the prominent Danish theologian and scientist Erik Pontoppidan. Kyrre Kverndokk will present a talk on Pontoppidan’s book about the earthquake, published in 1756. In this presentation, Kverndokk argues for a planetary connection between the mild winter in Scandinavia in 1756 and the earthquake.
Presenter
Kyrre Kverndokk is a Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen.
Reading
Brita Brenna, “Negotiating the History of the World,” in Negotiating Pasts in the Nordic Countries: Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Memory, ed. Anne Eriksen and Jon Vidar Sigurdsson (Lund, 2009), 125–29.
Organizer
KLIMER
NB: External guests should register with Ada Arendt.
Aesthetics of Care: Art between Private and Planetary oikos
Isak Winkel Holm from the University of Copenhagen will discuss his research project investigating the nexus of care crisis and environmental crisis.
Time and place: June 5, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
The term “aesthetic” comes in a broad and a narrow version. In its broad sense, closely related to the original Greek word aisthesis, “aesthetic” denotes the entire field of sensate experience. In its more common and more limited sense, “aesthetic” refers to the field of art. In this talk, Isak Winkel Holm suggests that the junction of the two senses of “aesthetic” can serve as a point of departure for an exploration of the relation between care and art. It can help us understand the way in which artworks engage with housework. More specifically, Holm will explore how an aesthetics of care, in its double meaning, is concerned not only with the human household but also with our planetary oikos.
About the presenter
Isak Winkel Holm, professor of comparative literature at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Recent books Kafka’s Stereoscopes: the Political Function of a Literary Style (Bloomsbury 2020) and Kierkegaard and Climate Catastrophe: Learning to Live on a Damaged Planet (Oxford University Press 2023). Principal investigator in OIKOS. A Cultural Analysis of Care and Crisis in the 21st Century, https://artsandculturalstudies.ku.dk/research/oikos/.
Reading
Stefania Barca, Forces of Reproduction: Notes for a Counter-Hegemonic Anthropocene. of Elements in Environmental Humanities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108878371
Organizer
KLIMER
NB: External guests should register with Ada Arendt.
The Songs of the Little Ice Age–Skillingsviser in an Environmental Context
A talk by Siv Gøril Brandtzæg (NTNU) about depictions of natural disasters in popular early modern printed sources.
Time and place: Apr. 10, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
Depictions of natural disasters were a recurring feature of skillingstrykk, a type of cheap print popular amongst a broad public in Norway and Scandinavia from the sixteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. This talk argues that a study of this particular print form – marginalized by most literary historians – is a potential keyhole into a Norwegian environmental history from below. How did the authors describe storms, floods, avalanches and famines, and what can the songs tell us about emergency response, grief and resilience in the pre-modern era? The presentation will focus mainly on the songs of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and will include sung examples.
About the presenter
Siv Gøril Brandtzæg is an Associate Professor in comparative literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and the leader of the project The Norwegian Skilling Ballad, 1550-1950: Recovering a cultural heritage, funded by the Research Council of Norway. She is the author of the research blog https://skillingsviser.no/.
Reading
Lotte Jensen, 'Disaster upon Disaster Inflicted on the Dutch'. Singing about Disasters in the Netherlands, 1600-1900. BMGN — Low Countries Historical Review, Vol.134 (2) 2019.
Organiser
KLIMER
NB: External guests should register with Ada Arendt.
Living with Livestock. Human-Animal Relations in Early Modern Swedish Households
In this session, Anton Runesson will present his ongoing project and discuss the different frameworks for explaining the behavior of livestock that men and women of early modern households made use of.
Time and place: Mar. 13, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In this session, Anton Runesson (University of Stockholm) will present his ongoing project 'Living with Livestock Human-Animal Relations in Early Modern Swedish Households,' and discuss the different frameworks for explaining the behavior of livestock that men and women of early modern household made use of.
About the presenter
Anton Runesson defended his thesis in history in 2021 and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Stockholm University and the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Reading
Mari Joerstad, The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics. Humans, NonHumans, and the Living Landscape, Cambridge University Press 2019, chapter 2 Interacting with the World, p. 14-47.
Organiser
KLIMER
NB: External guests should register with Ada Arendt.
Saved by the Sea? Reliance on Marine Resources During the 1740-43 Famine
How did coastal communities in Norway respond to the famine years during the Little Ice Age? In this session, Wanda Marcussen will present the findings of her research project, which shows the crucial role of marine harvesting in overcoming famine.
Time and place: Jan. 24, 2024 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
The presented research project seeks to better understand how coastal communities responded and adapted, or failed to do so, during the climate of the Little Ice Age and especially during crisis years. The focus is on the Norwegian experience of the cold and difficult years between 1740-1743. While large parts of the population struggled with famine and disease, marine resources seem to have provided crucial relief for most all coastal communities, limiting mortality increase compared to inland regions, the research found. Further, the research found that the abundance of fish initiated advancements in marine harvesting and processing techniques and methods. Merchants and fishermen found new incentives to invest in new equipment as good catches, better prices, and new markets secured more profit. Lastly, the research uncovered that this increased focus on trade and more intensive fishing did not lead to marine resources being exported away from the needing coastal communities to promote the interest of merchants seeking profit. The marine resources being available to local coastal communities was most likely due to the advancement and adaptation to the new rich fisheries taking some time, and infrastructure focused on export not yet being fully established.
Presenter
Wanda Marcussen grew up along the Oslo Fjord with a strong passion for history and cultural heritage. She completed her Bachelor's studies in International Relations with a specialization in History at The University of Oslo, and has also studied Social Anthropology at The University of Bergen, before completing her M.Phil degree in Environmental History at Trinity College Dublin in 2021. Wanda has work experience from Europa Nostra, The Directorate of Cultural Heritage and World History Encyclopedia.
Reading
Wieners, C. E. (2020). Haze, Hunger, Hesitation: Disaster Aid after the 1783 Lakagígar Eruption. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 406, Article 107080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2020.107080
Organiser
KLIMER
2023
Nature and Industry in Late State Socialism. A History of Soviet Forests
A talk by Elena Kochetkova, Associate Professor in Modern European Economic History at the University of Bergen.
Time and place: Dec. 13, 2023 3:15 PM – 6:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
The presentation is based on the forthcoming book The Green Power of Socialism (MIT Press, 2024). It examines the relationship between nature and humans under state socialism by looking at the industrial role of Soviet forests. The book explores evolving Soviet policies of wood consumption, discussing how professionals working in the forestry industry of the Soviet state envisaged the present and future of forests, perceiving them both as a natural resource and a trove of industrial material. Looking at the materiality of Soviet industry through forests and wood, this work demonstrates how, paradoxically, industrial ecology emerged and developed as a by-product of the Soviet industrialization project. Emphasizing the technological and environmental impacts of the Cold War, the book critically reconsiders two explanatory models which have become dominant in historiography of Soviet approaches to nature over the last decades – ecocide and environmentalism. It extends beyond these polarized characterizations to show that under state socialism, concern over the environment arose due to industrial priorities of the modernizing state, giving birth to an industrially embedded ecology. Within the context of the current environmental crisis, the book invites readers to re-evaluate state socialism as a complex phenomenon with sophisticated interactions between nature and industry. In so doing, it contributes a fresh perspective on the activities of socialist experts and their view of nature, shedding light on Soviet state industrial and environmental policy and its continuing legacy in the present day.
Presenter
Elena Kochetkova is a historian of the environment, technology, economy and state socialism. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in Modern European Economic History at the Department of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen. She served as a Secretary of the European Society of Environmental History in 2019-2021. Among her publications are articles in leading international journals, such as Technology and Culture, Environment and History, Contemporary European History, Journal of Contemporary History, among others.
Reading
Cheng Li and Yanjun Liu, ‘Selling Forestry Revolution: The Rhetoric of AfforestationinSocialist China, 1949–61,’ Environmental History 25, no. 1 (January 2020): 62–84.
From Charters and Accounts to Weather Records and Chronicles. Perceptions of Environment and their Diversity in 14th-Century England
A talk by Maximilian Schuh, lecturer in Medieval History at Freie Universität Berlin.
Time and place: Nov. 22, 2023 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
The history of Fourteenth-century England has long been written as a history of kings and their wars or as a history of the emerging legal system and parliamentarism. The environmental challenges of the time have only recently gained prominence in historical research. The environmental history of late medieval England is first of all a history of perceptions. References to weather and other environmental phenomena in contemporary sources must be critically examined to assess their specific value and significance. Against this background, I will present and discuss evidence from manorial accounts, royal charters, the learned astro-meteorological discourse as well as contemporary historiography. Thus, the variety of perceiving and speaking about the environment in Fourteenth-century England will come to light and enable us to compare these findings with research on other periods.
Presenter
Maximilian Schuh is a lecturer in Medieval History at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on the history of universities in the Holy Roman Empire in the later Middle Ages and on the perceptions of environment in Fourteenth century England. Furthermore, he is interested in the collaboration between the humanities and the natural sciences. Among his publications are his dissertation "Aneignungen des Humanismus" (2013), a handbook on sources for medieval and early modern university history (2018) as well as several articles and book chapters on the environmental history of the Middle Ages.
Reading
Buchanan Sharp, “Royal Paternalism and the Moral Economy in the Reign of Edward II: The Response to the Great Famine.” The Economic History Review 66, no. 2 (2013): 628–47.
The 1257 Samalas Eruption and the Fall of the Icelandic Chieftain System
A talk by Skafti Ingimarsson, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of History at the University of Iceland.
Time and place: Oct. 18, 2023 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In the summer of 1257, the Samalas volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok produced one of the largest explosive eruptions since the end of the last ice age. The eruption was catastrophic for people living in the vicinity, but it also caused temporary weather and climatic changes on a global scale, resulting in a cooler climate for three to four years. This presentation discusses the Samalas eruption and its consequences in Iceland. Evidence in the Icelandic annals and Sturlunga saga demonstrates that environmental conditions in Iceland deteriorated due to prolonged cooling in the years 1258–1259. However, the cooling reached its climax during the winter of 1260–1261, when sea ice – the country's ancient bane – surrounded the island and made sailing to and from it difficult. The sources indicate that cold and scarcity swept the country and that Icelandic farmers avoided famine by slaughtering their livestock in vast numbers, while making religious vows in the hope of better weather conditions. It is maintained that the difficult climate conditions are one of the reasons why the Icelandic parliament (Alþingi) entered into an agreement with the king of Norway in the summer of 1262, when the so-called Old Covenant was signed. It is argued that the purpose of the covenant's ship clause – which stipulated six ships were to sail between Norway and Iceland for the next two summers – was to ensure that supplies reached the residents who needed help. Acceptance of the covenant marked a turning point in Iceland's history. The chieftain system, which had been the governance system on the island since the Age of Settlement, had come to an end, and by 1264 the inhabitants had become subjects of the king of Norway. While it has previously been suggested that the Old Covenant manuscripts were fifteenth-century fabrications, the presentation's conclusion provides further support for the argument that they are rooted in the mid-thirteenth century. The subject is placed within the broader context of Icelandic–Norwegian political history during the thirteenth century in general, and volcanology and climatology in particular.
Readings
Guillet, Sébastien, Christophe Corona, Markus Stoffel, Myriam Khodri, Franck Lavigne, Pablo Ortega, Nicolas Eckert, Pascal Dkengne Sielenou, Valérie Daux, Olga V. Churakova Sidorova, Nicole Davi, Jean-Louis Edouard, Yong Zhang, Brian H. Luckman, Vladimir S. Myglan, Joël Guiot, Martin Beniston, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, and Clive Oppenheimer. "Climate Response to the Samalas Volcanic Eruption in 1257 Revealed by Proxy Records." Nature Geoscience 10, no. 2 (2017): 123-28. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2875
Sigl, Michael, JR McConnell, M. Toohey, G. Plunkett, F. Ludlow, M. Winstrup, S. Kipfstuhl, and Y. Motizuki. "The History of Volcanic Eruptions since Roman times." Past Global Change Magazine 23, no. 2 (2015): 48-49. https://doi.org/10.22498/pages.23.2.48
Presenter
Skafti Ingimarsson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of History at the University of Iceland. His research focuses mainly on Icelandic political and social history, with special emphasis on the Icelandic left-wing movement during the 20th century. He is also interested in environmental history, particularly in climatic change caused by explosive volcanic eruptions, their social consequences and how they appear in medieval Icelandic manuscripts.
Student workshop: Ecocritical readings of Early Modern literature
Workshop with guest researcher Dr Joana van de Löcht (University of Freiburg) and Dr Ada Arendt (University of Oslo) welcomes students wishing to engage with Early Modern literary sources to study past human-environment entanglements.
Time and place: Sep. 4, 2023 4:00 PM – Sep. 5, 2023 7:00 PM, Møterom 1116 Niels Treschows hus
Why take part?
During the workshop, you will learn how to do justice to the voices from the past, while reading them from a vantage point informed by contemporary environmental humanities. The event is open to all BA, MA and PhD students interested in climate, environmental and cultural history.
Questions addressed in the workshop
- How did Western Early Modern literary cultures react to weather and climatic events?
- What texts did they read to understand their environment?
- In what genres can a historian look for past knowledge about nature?
- How to ecocritically re-read Early Modern sources to produce new knowledge about past human-environment interactions?
- How does the Anthropocene paradigm change and influence our perception of the Early Modern era?
- How to practice 'responsible imaginative anachronism' (Mentz 2019) when reading premodern texts with our current conceptual toolboxes and ethical agendas?
- What is the difference between the 'good' and the 'bad' anachronism (Adkins 2016) when using the past a 'comparative sounding-board' (Rubin 2017) for the environmental concerns of today?
Conveners
Dr Joana van de Löcht is a postdoctoral scholar of German literature working at Freiburg University (Germany). Her research interests lie in the early modern period and here in the area of climate and literature. Furthermore, she has been working for some time in the field of literary soil studies, especially on the cultural poetics of the peatlands.
Dr Ada Arendt is a cultural historian studying environmental history through the idea of care. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo.
How to apply & practical information
To take part in the workshop, please register by August 31.
The event takes place on 4 and 5 September (Monday and Tuesday), 16:00–19:00 in person at the University of Oslo and online in Zoom. The workshop is uncredited. A good level of spoken and written English is required.
Location:
4 September: Meeting room 1116, Niels Treschows hus
5 September: DSC-Oasen, Georg Svedrups hus (main library), floor 01
Readings
- Miri Rubin, "Presentism's Useful Anachronisms," Past & Present, no. 234 (2017), pp. 236-244.
- Gillen D'Arcy Wood, "Eco-Historicism," Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 8.2 (2008), 1-7.
Organizer
KLIMER
Ephemeral genres of weather perception
A talk by guest researcher Joana van de Löcht about weather perception in various literary genres at the beginning of early modern print production.
Time and place: Aug. 30, 2023 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Møteroom 424, NT 4.floor
About the event
With the beginning of early modern print production, a multitude of popular genres quickly developed that dealt with the weather (often independently of the actual climatic conditions). These include, for example, calendars, broadsides, pamphlets, sermons and songs. What most of these texts have in common is that they were aimed at a popular audience, were produced quickly and cheaply, and have a rather ephemeral status in terms of their transmission. The aim of the presentation is to provide an overview of the different functions and the temporal status of the weather perception of the various genres.
Present
Dr Joana van de Löcht is a postdoctoral scholar of German literature working at Freiburg University (Germany). Her research interests lie in the early modern period and here in the area of climate and literature. Furthermore, she has been working for some time in the field of literary soil studies, especially on the cultural poetics of the peatlands. In August and September 2023, the KLIMER research group will welcome Joana as a guest researcher.
Reading
Sky Michael Johnston, "Printing the Weather. Knowledge, Nature, and Popular Culture in Two Sixteenth-Century German Weather Books," Renaissance Quarterly 73 (2020), 391–440.
KLIMER Talk: Living with Livestock
Human-Animal Relations i Early Modern Swedish Households
Anton Runesson, University of Stockholm.
June 21, 2023 4:15 PM - 7:15 PM, Håndbibliotektet Niels Treschows Hus
Curating climate; (Ab)using Climate
In the first part of this session, Ingar Mørkestøl Gundersen will present his project'Curating climate. Exhibiting past climate-society-interactions.' In the second part, Dominik Collet will present his paper '(Ab)using climate. The first partition of Poland Lithuania, 1772.'
Time and place: June 7, 2023 4:15 PM – 7:15 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
Climate change represents unique challenges and possibilities for museums. It's omnipresent but intangible, bridges planetary history and the future, involves different knowledge traditions, is polarising and engaging, and requires both urgent attention and thoughtful consideration. Thus, climate change demands new conversations and ways of engaging with the public. However, museums' role in society is becoming increasingly difficult, as conversations about climate change can compromise their role and function as trusted and neutral sources of information and scientific knowledge. What is the role and future of climate museums? ClimCults planned mini exhibition at Klimahuset will attempt to tackle some of these challenges by exploring the Little Ice Age through the lens of human responses. What choices did people make, and why does it matter?
Reading
Robin, Libby. "Museums in the Long Now: History in the Geological Age of Humans", Journal of the Philosophy of History 14, 3 (2020): 359-381, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18722636-12341448
Workshop Climate & conflict revisited. Perspectives from the past and the present
On 11/12 May 2023 CLIMCULT will host a workshop the climate-conflict-nexus. It will bring together fields of climate history and conflict studies and explore new, integrative research designs.
Time and place: May 11, 2023 9:00 AM – May 12, 2023 1:00 PM, Lids hus
Theme:
The link between climate change and conflict has become a major topic of public debate. Fears of climate-driven conflict frame security concerns and fuel dystopian media depictions. These debates have been informed – often implicitly – by historical precedents. However, research in the field has been limited by disciplinary constraints. This workshop will bring together fields of climate history and conflict studies. Its goal is to establish an improved historical ‘baseline’ for current claims and projections, to challenge determinist imaginaries, and to broaden the current debate about climate and conflict – both modern and historical.
Program:
Thursday, May 11th 2023
9.00-9.15 Introduction and welcome
9.15-10.45 Historical perspectives I
- Barry Molloy (Dublin), 1200 BC – a critical nexus of shifts in climate and conflict patterns coinciding with large-scale societal collapse
- Astrid Ogilvie (Colorado), Climate and Conflict in Iceland ca. AD 1100 to 1430
- Georgios C. Liakopoulos / Adam Izdebski (Jena), The role of conflict in maintaining resilience to environmental stressors in late medieval and early modern Central Macedonia
11.15-12.00 Historical perspectives II
- Christian Pfister (Bern), Reflections on the nexus between climate, weather and resource conflicts using case studies in Europe from the 15th and 16th centuries
13.00-14.30 Historical perspectives II (cont'd)
- Diyang Zhang / Siyu Chen (Freiburg / Bern), Impacts of natural disasters in China in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911): From the food prices to population security
- Lukáš Dolák (Brno), An effect of climate fluctuation on the 1775 and 1821 rebellions in the Czech Lands
- Rudolf Brázdil / Katrin Kleemann (Brno, Bremerhaven), Weather and climate and their human impacts and responses during the Thirty Years’ War in Central Europe15.00-16.00
15.00-16.00 Contemporary perspectives I
- Stefan Döring (Uppsala / Oslo), Climate-Conflict impact on cooperation and health
- Natália Nascimento e Melo (Évora), Museums as climate mediators in the 21st century
16.30-17.30 Visit to Klimahuset
18.00-19.00 Public talk at Klimahuset
- Florian Krampe (SIPRI, Stockholm), Demystifying Climate Security – It’s complex, but not complicated
Friday, May 12th 2023
9.00-10.30 New databases on climate and conflict (hybrid)
- Pi-Ling Pai / Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin (Taipei), The construction of the SIER database for exploring the relationship between climate change and social unrest
- Santiago Gorostiza / Mariano Barriendos (Barcelona), Revisiting the connection between climatic variability and witch-hunting. The case of Catalonia (1580-1630)
- Nicolas Maughan / Qing Pei (Aix-Marseille / Hong Kong), Climate Change and Historical Social Conflicts in pre-Industrial Europe: First results from the new HiSCoD database
10.45-11.45 Contemporary perspectives II
- Cedric de Coning (Oslo), Coping with Complexity: Toward Epistemological Pluralism in Climate–Conflict Scholarship
- Silviya Serafimova (Sofia), Challenging the gist of climate violence through the lens of positive peace
12.00-13.00 Closing roundtable and discussion
The full programm (pdf)
The call for papers for this workshop (pdf)
Registration:
- The event will be streamed via Zoom. If you want to join online or visit the evening lecture at Klimahuset please register here. Deadline for registration May 10th 14:00: https://nettskjema.no/a/334363
- There are some limited spaces for physical participation in the workshop. If interested please contact: Dominik.Collet@iakh.uio.no
Organisers:
- Dominik Collet, CLIMCULT (Socionatural entanglements of climate and culture in Little Ice Age Norway)
- Sam White, CRIAS (Climate Reconstruction and Impacts from the Archives of Societies)
- The event has been supported by the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities
Organizer
Dominik Collet
The ‘Little Ice Age’ – fact or fiction?
Time and place: May 10, 2023 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In this session, we will discuss the concept of the 'Little Ice Age' with guests Heli Huhtamaa (University of Bern) and Sam White (University of Helsinki).
Reading
Jeremy Adelman, Elizabeth B. Pollard, and Robert L. Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present (2021), p. 521-536.
Recommended:
Heli Huhtamaa, The good, bad, undefined Little Ice Age, Historical Climatology blog, 6 March 2020.
Sam White, A Cold Welcome (2017), chapter 5.
Heinz Wanner, Christian Pfister, and Raphael Neukom. "The Variable European Little Ice Age." Quaternary Science Reviews 287 (2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107531
Little Ice Age impacts in Norway
Time and place: Apr. 19, 2023 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In this session, Doctoral Research Fellow Matias Kallevik will present his doctoral project on the Little Ice Age impacts in Norway.
What was the Anthropocene?
Time and place: Mar. 22, 2023 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In this session, Doctoral Research Fellow Ingar Stene will present the introductory chapter to his doctoral thesis.
Instrumentalizing the Border River
Images of the Zbruch and the Ideologization of its Riverscape in Interwar Soviet Ukraine by Oleksii Chebotarov.
Time and place: Feb. 15, 2023 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Håndbiblioteket, Niels Treschows Hus
About the event
In the first session in the Spring semester, Oleksii Chebotarov from the University of Vienna will talk about the ideological use of river Zbruch, which bordered interwar Poland and the Soviet Union.
He will discuss the political and cultural Soviet discursive images of Zbruch, as well as physical projections of these discourses on the riverscape.
Reading: Tricia Cusack, Riverscapes and National Identities, Syracuse University Press 2010, chapter 6 Shannon Riverscapes.
About the presenter
Oleksii Chebotarov is an SNSF Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Eastern European History, University of Vienna. He also works in the research projects of the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen, the European Association of Jewish Studies, and the Center for Urban History in Lviv. He is currently working on a book based on his doctoral dissertation "Jews from the East, Global Migration and Habsburg Galicia in the early 1880s" and on the postdoctoral project "The Border River Zbruch: A Socia-Cultural and Environmental History, 1900-1939." His field of expertise includes Jewish, digital, and environmental history, as well as migration, borderland, and Ukrainian studies.
2022
KLIMER Talk: Aquifer Systems: Groundwater and Resource Conflicts in Global Networks
For this session, we have the pleasure of welcoming Dr Sarah Hamilton, Associate professor in Environmental History at the University of Bergen. Sarah will give a talk on Aquifer Systems: Groundwater and Resource Conflicts in Global Networks.
Time and place: Dec. 7, 2022 4:15 PM – 7:00 PM, NT Håndbiblioteket
Sarah Hamilton is an Associate professor in Environmental History at the University of Bergen. Sarah is researching the politics of water use and the impacts of global networks on conservation and environmental change in working landscapes. She is currently working on the project "Water Underground", a "comparative study of large-scale groundwater development in diverse locations including Spain, the United States, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and southern Africa. It follows flows of water, commodities, expertise, and technology through global networks over the past 150 years and explores epistemological and practical questions surrounding the exploitation of invisible resources."
Remembering Medieval Floods
Time and place: Nov. 16, 2022 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, NT Håndbiblioteket
KLIMER seminar with Ellen Fenzel Arnold from the University of Stavanger.
Archaeology of Care: Towards New Directions in Environmental History
Time and place: Oct. 12, 2022 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, NT Håndbiblioteket
KLIMER seminar with Ada Arendt.
Reading: to be announced.
In this session we will also discuss a proposal draft for CAS by Dominik Collet.
Therapeutic Climates. Environing Medicine in the Soviet Sanatorium, 1917-1953.
Time and place: Sep. 14, 2022 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, NT Håndbiblioteket
KLIMER seminar with Johanna Conterio
Reading: Sverker Sörlin and Nina Wormbs, “Environing technologies: a theory of making environment”, History and Technology, 34:2 (2018): 101-125.
KLIMER TALK: "... siden døde alle folkene på skipet ..." Å bekjempe pandemier i 600 år"
By Ole Georg Moseng (USN)
Time and place: May 11, 2022, Cafe Snorre, NT 5. etasje
Pandemics have haunted humanity since the dawn of time. The oldest victim of the plague we know of, died 5,000 years ago in Sweden. We now have our own painful experiences. Knowledge that diseases can be contagious is more than 2,000 years old. The doctor from the 17th century protected himself with much of the same as today's intensive care nurses. It is thought-provoking that we have fought the most dangerous pandemics of all time without access to effective drugs.
Exploring socionatural entanglements in Little Ice Age Norway (1500-1800) / The Power of Ice: Norwegian Cold in 19th Century Colonial Algeria
By Matias Kallevik / Solfrid Klakegg Surland
Time: Apr. 6, 2022
Cold Knowledge: The Rise and Fall of Imagined Greenland in Early Modern Europe
By Ingar Stene.
Time: Mar. 9, 2022
The Dust Bowl, the Depression, and American Protestant Responses to Environmental Devastation
By Randall James Stephens
Time: Feb. 16, 2022
Consensus in a Landscape of Control: Citizenship, Faith, and Cultivation in Tule Lake, May to December, 1942
By Samuel Klee
Time: Jan. 12, 2022
2021
Finansieringen av et kollektivt gode - fyrtårn på Lindesnes på 1700-tallet
by Finn Erhard Johannessen, comment by Einar Lie
Time: Dec. 8, 2021
Assembling the Anthropocene
Time: Nov. 10, 2021
By Bergsveinn Þórsson. Comment by Ulrike Spring.
KLIMER TALK: The Changing Meanings of “Environmental Protection” and the Invention of the Fragile Arctic
Time: Oct. 14, 2021
By Peder Roberts
During and after the Second World War the United States Army invested considerable resources on studies of “environmental protection.” But the aim was not to protect the fragile Arctic environment from the ravages of people, but rather to protect fragile
soldiers and equipment from the ravages of the harsh Arctic. How,
when, and why this change took place lies at the heart of my ongoing
ERC project “Greening the Poles: Science, the Environment, and the
Creation of the Modern Arctic and Antarctic”.
In this talk I will sketch the main lines of the shift with particularly attention to the rapid changes at the end of the 1960s and start of the 1970s. But there were also continuities, notably in military and engineering contexts, while the polar bear provides a particularly interesting example of how the duality of the threatening and the threatened could coexist.
KLIMER BOOK TALK: Heritage Ecologies
Time: Oct. 13, 2021
By Þóra Pétursdóttir.
Nature’s Hangovers: Plastic Packaging, Beer Bottles and Littered Beaches Between European Integration and Environmental Activism
Time: Oct. 13, 2021
By Melina Antonia Buns. Comment by Dominik Collet.
An Animal or a Type of Weather? The Case of Descending Lemmings in Early Modern European Discourse
Time: Sep. 8, 2021
By Ingar Stene. Comment by Melina Antonia Buns.